What ails my country, Malaysia?
A Personal Comment
By Khoo Soo Hay
Preamble
Where do I begin for those of us who were born before
Independence?
For the Septuagenarians and Octogenarians, whose memories
were still good, Malaya was a country ruled by the British, no doubt for their
own selfish Imperialistic ends, but Malayans, indigenous and migrants were
accorded a way of life, free of religious restraint, free and equal economic
work opportunities and a laissez-faire entrepreneurial spirit that helps to
develop the country, irrespective of race and religion. Anyone with a flair for
business and prepared to work hard and use his brain could be a millionaire.
There were so many real life examples among the Chinese and Indian migrants
with perhaps some trading Malays.
In the history of civilizations, empires rise and fall. So
it would be with the British Empire. The First World War really sapped the
youth of England, with millions dying in the muddy fields of Flanders and
Ypres. One such was the English Poet, Wilfred Owen, who returned to the war and
was killed in 1918 at the age of 25 years. His poem, “Strange Meeting”,
depicting death in the trenches, was the beginning of many to come with the
Second World War later.
My father, a Khoo, of course, was born in 1906 that year in
February, the British Parliament approved the principle of paying old age
pensions by taxation. Same old story,
pay up first when you work by way of taxes, then you get it back by way of
pensions, provided the Government ensures that the money collected are saved
and available to be dispensed later as pensions. What traditionally used to be
called robbing Peter to pay Paul system.
Back Pay for
Municipal Workers
My father, after the end of the Japanese Occupation was the
George Town Municipal Council Employees’ Union President, and he fought the
Municipal Commissioners for the three and a half years of Japanese Occupation
Municipal work done by the Council workers, to claim the back-pay owed to them,
since Japanese banana notes were worthless, and everybody survived one way or
another by dint of hard work and thrift. He was successful, and even
entertained Mr Malcolm MacDonald, the British High Commissioner to an annual
Union Dinner in Penang in the late 1940’s. My father was a Fabian Socialist, a
great G.B. Shaw fan, a founder member of the George Town Labour Party Branch
together with contemporaries like the late Mayor of George Town, C.Y. Choy and
other Labour Party luminaries.
On the 12th of April 1906 in New York, American writer, Mark
Twain, spoke in favour of the Russian Revolution at a dinner in honour of Maxim
Gorky, the Russian writer. In those days, Americans were very supportive of the
Russian revolutionaries against the Czarist regime. Forty years later, to the
Americans, Russia was a Cold War adversary, no love lost then.
On 15th November 1906, the Japanese launched the biggest
battleship, named the ‘Satsuma’.
This was an indication of the industrial strength and
military built up of the Japanese armed forces in their attempted conquest of
China and South East Asia which led to the Pacific War in the 1940’s. Yet the
Western Allied nations had necessarily ignored the inferior little ‘Nips’ in
the East, being preoccupied with their traditional so called arch enemy Germany.
They forgot that the Japanese Navy trashed the Czarist Russian naval fleet at
Port Arthur in 1904.
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When my father was six years old, the new Chinese Republic
was proclaimed on 15th February 1912 with Dr Sun Yat-Sen as the new
President. As my father was born in the
Straits Settlement of Penang, he was a British subject then. His school days at
the Anglo Chinese
School, which was run by the Methodist Church, had its
biblical influence on my father, as he was frequently quoting biblical parables.
Though he never became a Christian, he stuck to his
traditional Chinese Taoist and Confucian roots all his life.
One of the more familiar biblical phrases, I remember him saying, was, ‘and it
shall come to pass’. That in the end must
encompass life and death, and everyone else on earth, except
that a lot died unnecessarily due to violence and wars in the past century and
are continuing to do so in the present one.
Penang Free School
& College
I should imagine
canteen life would have been the same as when I was in the Penang Free School
in the early 1950’s when there was no separation of space for religious
reasons. Any
student of any religious faith could mingle, seat and eat
next to each other, not to share the meal,
but to be able to converse with each other. Why must the powers that be,
create such an imposition in the life of its faithful, causing such discomfort
to themselves, giving the impression of their superior faith, in comparison to
the others belonging to the same original Prophet, Abraham?
The word ‘Free’ in Penang Free School refers to a school,
which admits students professing any religion, irrespective of race. Hence,
there was never any opening prayer before classes begun, nor at the assembly of
the whole school every Monday morning in the School Hall.
Religion was to each your own self, controlled by your own
parents from home. And this was the same when at the University of Malaya in
Singapore then. Religion was not an issue. In campus there were religious
student societies, as with other academic student societies, where students
were considered as adults, to be able to think for themselves.
I recall a student from a Negri Sembilan royal family who
was a member of a Christian Student Movement, actively involved in its
activities, I suppose trying to learn more about Christianity from the one he
was born into. Of course he was sent to Coventry by his Muslim student ummah.
Admission to the University, there was only one then in the
early 1950’s, was based on meritocracy. You would need to pass the University
Matriculation Examination or get through the Senior Cambridge University High
School Certificate “A” levels, before you can get admitted, irrespective of
race. My Malay college mates did qualify to be admitted as much as I did,
without any handicap, and they did very well upon graduation. I recall the
names of Elyas Omar and Hanif Omar who were in civil service, and Musa Hitam in
politics later.
Early Working Life
The time in the early 1960’s when I started working in the
private sector, it was still a case of the better qualified man for the job. In
the Civil Service sector, after Malayanization, more openings were reserved to
provide places for bumiputras, in place of the departing Europeans. Twenty
years or so later, there were few non Malays in the top civil service, and not
only in the Army but in our Navy, the last non Malay was Rear Admiral
Thanabalasingam who went on early retirement. The same applied to our Foreign
Service, where our young diplomats shied away from socializing at official
cocktail functions, not because their religion forbade them to participate in
drinking, but that their command of English would not take them very far in
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communicating with foreigners. One would have thought that
it is at such functions that you mingle and meet and get to know the other
diplomatic officials from whom you could pick up information and
intelligence. We were going backwards.
We might as close our embassies,
high commissions and consulates overseas and save some
money, and do away with the Minister of Foreign or External Affairs and his
ministry.
Learning Curve in
Work & Creative Selling.
From academic studies in Economics and English Literature
and the cocoon of college life to the real life of the public economic world of
business is like living on the moon and living on this tumultuous earth. It was
a good learning curve when thrown into the daily life of the meaning of earning
a living, amidst trying to sell a product or service that another human may
require. In the
modern context of trade, you are required to create a demand
among consumers for your product or service, even though your consumer may not
have any need for either. That is what we call creative selling, or creating a consumer demand, through message
advertising. It does not matter whether the consumer has the ability to buy or
a need for it. It is your creative skill,
to convince him that he must find the financial means to
acquire the product by hook or by crook. It is like selling life insurance. You
have to create the impression that death faces you every hour, every day, and
remind your potential client that if you are not prepared for it, your wife and
family members may suffer after you. You have to sell ‘fear’ to make financial
provision for them. It is part of the
capitalist laissez-faire system.
Statutory &
Government Departments Experience
One of my first working experiences was to accompany my
company’s import clerk to the Customs Dept to lodge our application documents
for the Customs Department office to approve them. The first thing our clerk
did was to hand over one Ringgit (so called ‘kopi duit’ or coffee money, to the
office-boy or what we call him, “tamby” in those days, now he is known as an
‘office assistant’.) who will then as a favour put our application file on top
of the piles of others’ files, so that it will receive immediate attention when
passed to the Customs officer in charge of approval. The file on the top of the
pile gets taken out first. Imagine hundreds of these applications go through
each day at the Customs office. Whether
there was any arrangement between the Customs officers and the office boy was
anyone’s guess. The Civil Service could have saved thousands of Ringgits by not
providing employees’ annual gratuities or annual bonuses to such government
departments, including the Transport Department which controlled the Registrar
of Vehicles which in turn conducts driving tests for all drivers of vehicles
and riders of motor cycles. It was well known that one must provide a ‘red
packet’ to the driving tester, to ensure that one gets to pass one’s driving
test, even though one were confident of 100% pass.
To be able to be appointed a driving tester in those days was
like striking a monthly lottery draw.
And when you go to see to the clearing of your imported
goods in the Port Commission godown, after having paid the necessary clearing
fees to the Port Commission, you are asked by the lorry transport driver who is
waiting for your goods to be loaded onto his lorry, to pass an ‘ang-pow’ to the go-down store-keeper so
that he could then ‘instruct’ the go-down forklift driver to move out your
stock of goods before tackling others’ goods. Even the consignment of New Year
calendars, especially the girly ones in those days that were so popular, would
have to be given out to the Customs before you are allowed to draw them out of
the Customs go-down.
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Malaysia?)
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On one occasion, I had the privilege of requesting the
Customs Dept chief to return one gift pack glass decanter bottle of expensive
Cognac with two Cognac glass snifters, specially imported for the end year
festive season, when I discovered through my go-down clerk that the Customs and
Port Commission staff had each decided to take possession of the glass snifters,
on the excuse that the bottle and its expensive liquid
contents would be sent to the Chemistry Dept. to check the volume of its
alcohol content for tax purposes, and was not expected, that the importer would
ask for it back, as it would already be uncorked, and treated as used, and
unsellable. Luckily for me the Chemistry Dept. chief was a friend of mine, and
when I went to claim it back, he assured me that, although it was in his DNA
that Cognac was the love of his life, he only drew a centilitre or two for
testing. He duly made me sign an indemnity form and assured me that he would
return the bottle to me through the Customs Dept. When I went to receive the
package, from the Customs chief, all the pretty frills, and box, were absent,
except for the decanter bottle, its decanter glass top and the two glass
snifters.
.
Baksheesh Everywhere
I mention all these is to let you know that as early as in
the mid 1960’s all these so called corrupt practices had been going on, on the
ground so to speak, and accepted by most business men as traditional handouts,
as to them, time is money! You will find ‘baksheesh’ when and where business
and trade are concerned, except that in those days, when there was not much
development and there was less high level corruption. Nowadays, we have what I
label, ‘megaruption’, that is
corruption from mega projects.
Corruption has been endemic throughout our country’s
history. When caught breaking traffic rules in those days, the ordinary ‘mata mata’ was easily paid off without a
ticket or fine, as their salary was so low and their educational background was
just as low, that there was no moral compunction about accepting an offer of
two ringgits to supplement their low salary. Now it is in the hundreds in the
highways. Offering fifty ringgits to the Highway Patrol officers would only
demean the fact that you are driving a BMW or Mercedes Benz 350 SL auto that
was the reason for speeding, in which case, he may as well give you a summons
to pay up five hundred ringgits or more to befit your status in court, in
addition to the media publicity.
Even our food hawkers parking their carts illegally on the
roadside to make a decent living, had to make the ‘mata mata’ patrol man happy with not only a handshake of goodwill
but a Bank Negera note or two when he came cross on his patrol visit. As for
the Health inspectors they know where the best hawker foods and restaurants
were, and inspections of premises which house lots of rodents would be
penalized by way of vocal cautions, and threats of fines, leading to the food
caterers, offering profuse apologies and such suitable offerings or donations
to assist with the upkeep of the health inspector’s family.
The ‘Close One Eye’
Syndrome
Talking of our police enforcement, again the degree is
subject to special arrangements with those businesses which have to deal with
the district police station, especially those in the traffic department. Each
police district station has control over the passage of transport lorries
plying the route or roads under the district station’s supervision, in respect
of such lorries breaking any traffic rules, such as overloading, going against
the red light, and parking in no parking zones, when unloading goods to their
customers’ premises. Such special arrangements are for long
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term, by a monthly donation to the district station’s ‘endowment
fund’. With such an arrangement, the company’s lorries will not be
unnecessarily detained in the police station’s
compound for days on end, until a fine is settled. The
transport company owner could not afford not to use its lorry, as it has to pay
the driver and his assistant their wages, and not to mention
the amount of road tax that it had already paid up front to
the Road Transport Department. Time lost is money lost. This is business. The
district station’s traffic department has the license
plate numbers of the transport company’s vehicles for easy identification
when a traffic rule is breached in the covered area.
The company lorry drivers were warned that when driving in a
different part of the town or state, which is not covered, any fines will be
paid by the lorry drivers themselves and not by the company. This is what will
be called in later years, the ‘close one
eye’ syndrome, which eventually perpetuated the culture affecting all
Government ministries and departments. You name it, they have it. Just ask any
old and present civil servant.
Another surreptitious, if one may call it ‘traditional’
practice, with the traffic department is that for every traffic accident report
lodged by the local car repair workshop, a suitable donation to the
department’s so called ‘endowment fund’ must be made. Imagine the number of
accidents in our cities and towns, happening each day in the hundreds, will
contribute thousands of ringgits to the fund!
This has the effect of workshops overcharging and loading the claims
against the insurance companies, which of course will keep on increasing the
car accident insurance premiums of car owners. So if every year your insurance
agent tells you that premiums will go up, apart from the increase in cost of
replacement car parts, it is also this so called ‘levy’ or donation to the
traffic department’s ‘endowment fund’ that adds to the higher premium to be
paid. Don’t forget inflation also gets into the government departments.
With every district police station the Government had the
foresight to build blocks of residential quarters for its uniformed personnel
based there. In those days, TV sets were quite expensive, and these quarters
did not come equipped with TV sets, free from the employer. When you could see
that the majority of the flats had attached antennas to them, you wonder how
the tenants of the flats, earning such low salaries could afford them.
The Invisible Cost of
Doing Business
Even in the supplies of office equipment to public schools,
by the private trade, a kick back based on around 10.0% of the month’s business
invoice value is reserved for the school administration department. This also
applied to most public banks, large corporations and government institutions
and statutory bodies. There was a time when the multinational electronic
factories began to be established in the Free Trade Zone in Penang island in
the 1960’s and 1970’s, and there was not much internal control over local
purchases, it was heyday for the procurers in charge. They were able to take
their families on annual holiday overseas.
Whoever was in charge of such purchases get the monthly ‘ang-pows’. Hence the businessmen or
traders have to hike up their prices by more than 10.0% to cover such invisible
costs of doing business. Such values I suppose add to the GDP of our country.
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Malaysia?)
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Restrictive Racial
Trade Practice.
In subsequent years, the non-Malay private traders could not
even deal directly with any government departments as only businesses or
companies with Malay equity were allowed to sell to them. This forced
established non-Malay businesses to take in Malay partners, so as to
qualify to do business with the Government departments and
GLC’s. In a way it was a form of sharing profits, with unenviable partners.
Higher Level
Corporate Corruption
On the higher level, of course, businessmen, when dealing
with government procurers, would find out from their associates, the moral
integrity and financial needs of the officer concerned as to the degree of so
called ‘take’ or cost of getting the contract. In those days, it was just the
top officer. Nowadays, Ministers had to be taken care of first. No wonder
Government budgets just for maintenance alone are high, what more for special
project developments, which are now in the billions! A Federal project that
costs 100 millions can be pushed up five times, to ensure that every entitled
politician and crony gets a share of our taxes, since most if not all
government large projects were conducted on the basis of negotiated tenders,
and not open public tenders.
All these started when the fourth P.M. took over the reins
of running the country and the implementation and privatization of the
North-South Express Toll Highways.
Subservience of the
Judiciary
The saga of the UMNO split between Tengku Razaleigh and Dr
Mahathir Mohammad factions at the UMNO
General Elections of 1987 led to the subsequent subservience of the Judiciary
to the Executive while the timid legislators stood by and supported this
terrible emasculation of one of our pillars of parliamentary democratic
principles of the separation of powers, is too well known and recorded in our
history for me to elaborate. This again was another instrument of control by
the P.M. of that time. Our learned members of the Judiciary who were still
seating on the Bench took the queue, pronounced their opinions accordingly, and
realized their own career ambition and retired with higher pensions. Others who
disagreed were sacked and deprived of their pensions and others on principle
retired as soon as they reached retirement age.
Privatization Equals
‘Piratization’
The Fourth P.M.’s introduction of the “Malaysia Incorporated
Policy” in 1984 led to the idea of taking government sectors, which provide
services to the public, such as the supply of electricity, water, post offices,
sewerage, ports, railways, airlines, private, by turning them into public
corporations with Government holding either a majority or minority equity share.
This was then a good idea, in that government expenditure on such public sector
providers could be reduced dramatically in the national budget. It meant
reducing the civil service numbers, pensions, cost of living allowances, etc.
But what the public did not realize was that this was a way for those involved
to find means of ‘creating’ additional income, for themselves. Creating private
corporations mean they have to be registered as public companies with the
Registrar of Companies, which incurred the selling of their shares to the
public and reserved share participants like for the government. It was in the
larger allocations of ‘pink’ application forms, which were secured for the reserved
ethnic sector of the public, and the new directors and share-holders of the
company, that was one way of creating additional income. But what came later
was even worse, for the public and consumers. Once settled, the company would
eventually realize that they need more financial resources to expand and pay
for their company progress and developments, without the approval of the
Government, since they are privatized economic entities with its own powers of
management under its own Board of Directors. One or
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two Government representatives seating in the Board is in
the minority and can be easily persuaded to go along with the rest, with true
altruistic motives.
Hence the more public facilities are being privatized the
way it has been done, the more the public will need to be vigilant. Important
daily consumer products like rice and sugar had already been taken into semi
private corporations with the result of the public having to pay higher prices
for them. Of course by doing it this way, the government will give the excuse
that there will be less subsidies to be provided, since these essential daily
consumer products are
apparently no longer under government control and
distribution. The perception of the government’s privatization policy is now
seen as “piratization” policy by the
public.
1985 Industrial
Master Plan
The introduction of the “Industrial Master Plan” of 1985 saw
a rush of development of heavy industrial projects which culminated in the
establishments of the K.L. International Airport, Putra
Jaya, the Bakun Dam in Sarawak, Petronas Towers, Formula One
Circuit, Perwaja Steel (registered as Perwaja Trengganu Sdn.Bhd.)
Mismanagement of
G.L.Cs. – MAS example
In all the years, the public had seen the extent in which
these so called ‘government local corporations’ had ripped off the public with
their extravagant, unnecessary changes in their development of the products or
services they were suppose to provide. Malaysian Airlines System is a classic
example of exploitation of a government public service, if you can call it
that. Another example is Perwaja Steel, which kept on swallowing more and more
infusions of Government cash, which never reflected its product quality and
quantity, and effective marketing, in spite of import restrictions and all
available support from the government. It would
seem, that the industry was there just to create employment.
In the words of Barry Wain, who wrote in his book, “The Malaysian Maverick”,
said, “Perwaja looked like no more than a shining example of a politically
conceived, commercially questionable and poorly executed enterprise that
predictably failed.” Similarly the Post Office was privatized or corporatized,
and postal rates just went up, in order to ensure that it would provide good
annual dividends and better salaries for its employees. The other good case is
our Tenaga National Berhad, where it was forced to enter into agreements with
the Independent Power Producers to its disadvantage and had to buy its
electricity from them at exorbitant prices, detrimental to the company and to
the public. This came about because the public utility department then was not
efficiently managed in that there were country-wide blackouts, which affected
our emergent expanding industrial production. The government under the new P.M.
took drastic action to ensure that the country will never suffer again from the
lack of electricity supply, but then he went overboard by ensuring that the
‘cronies’ whom he favoured to invite them to ‘help’ out the country and
government, participate in a deal which they could not turn down. It was not a
deal which a genuine business man would venture into, as it meant mortgaging
your future profits to your so called, ‘partner’ for a generation or so.
Look East & Proton
In the early 1950’s and 1960’s, the war weary Malayans,
especially the Chinese, immediately after the Japanese Occupation of the
country, were still harbouring anti-Japanese sentiments. I remember some brave
business men imported the earliest model of a Toyota car, to compete with the
imported established brands of British cars. It took many years to overcome the
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sentiments, before the public began to accept Japanese
products, especially the introduction of the popular Honda motorcycle, with its
innovative press button starter, which came in very handy for women to use,
instead having to kick start the machine. This product alone made one
of Penang’s Chinese illiterate mechanics with an
entrepreneurial flair, a billionaire when his business expanded into other
economic sectors.
Proton Cars
As Malaysia developed, our new PM adopted the ‘Look East’
policy of adopting Japanese economic developments, one of which resulted in
starting a car manufacturing factory.
However, as expected, since the country did not have a proper
steel industry yet, the initial output of the new Malaysian car called
“Proton”, was basically unassembled parts of the
original Japanese Mitsubishi product made in Japan with a
new name. With the so called ‘production’ of our national car, the government
had to protect this infant industry from importation of foreign cars by levying
very heavy import duties and taxes. This could not be avoided, if the country wanted
such an industry to succeed. But against the wisdom and advice of economists
and industrial players, there were many obstacles which eventually after 30
years, or more, had emerged to still withhold the successful implementation of
the Proton project. There are many reasons for this failure.
Bumiputra National
Project
Because it is a ‘bumiputra’, national project, financed by
the Government, its management and business structure and manufacturing policy
were strictly confined to secure employment and business benefits for
‘bumiputra’ connected companies which were encouraged to start up the
manufacturing of small car parts to supply to Proton. This will then reduce the
importation of these parts from the Japanese original manufacturer, and save on
overseas cost of materials and foreign exchange for the country.
However, this would mean that Proton would not be able to
source for competitive, perhaps better quality car parts from other unregistered
local bumiputra and non-bumiputra suppliers. Proton was bound to buy parts from
its registered bumiputra suppliers and no one else. This resulted in the Proton
procurers not being able buy from any unregistered or unconnected supplier. He
is bound to accept the parts that the registered supplier supplies. Of course
the parts must meet with the necessary specifications, in order to fit into the
product, and pay the cost. It could not go out of this suppliers’ loop and buy
competitively from non registered suppliers. It would only mean that its
assembly costs would be higher. It was nothing but an economic cartel of registered
suppliers. But because it is a ‘bumiputra national project, local car buyers
were expected to make a sacrifice, by buying and supporting Proton cars, since
the Government had raised the prices of imported foreign cars through higher
protective import duties and taxes. Initially all the local car importers and
distributors were affected. With the introduction of Proton cars, it created a
new group of distributors mainly confined to bumiputras, who were allotted such
franchises. This is an example of a non-free trade practice interference of the
market, introduced by the government. With
inflation and higher material costs, I see no way in which prices of Proton
cars can come down, and so imported car prices will keep rising as global costs
go up, unless the high import duties and taxes are lowered.
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“Application Permits”
to Import Foreign Cars
With the implementation of the Proton car project, and the
restriction affected by the higher import duties and taxes levied on imported
cars, this gave rise to a brilliant idea of introducing
‘Application Permits’ to import foreign cars, especially the
more well known and expensive models, which were favoured by the Chinese
business community and other non-Chinese
professionals. These permits were again confined to the
Governing party’s political members, officials and connected cronies. These
A.P.s were worth RM10,000.00 per vehicle but in the
open market it would be worth more than twice. It was
rumoured then that every UMNO division chairman was entitled to apply for 10
A.P.s each month. If they did not have the cash to apply, they could rely on
their Chinese business men connection to lend them the money, in return for
sharing their A Ps. This was manna from heaven, a monthly income of Ringgit
Malaysia one hundred thousand without having to work for it! You would only
need to ensure
that your party division members vote you in as the Chairman
of the division every year. If this was not a form of political corruption,
then what would you call it? A great example of ensuring that members of the
favoured, privileged, ethnic sector stayed and supported the ruling ethnic
political party in power forever as long as such financial and economic
benefits are reserved for the members.
Ali-Baba Connections
With such a business co-operation between particularly the
Chinese and the bumiputras, it was labeled, in the early days, as an ‘Ali-Baba’
arrangement. The normal modus operandi entails the
bumiputra getting the government contract to build a pass-over
or a road, or a building, and as the bumiputra in the earlier days had no such
experience, he had to look for a partner with such
experience to run the project on his behalf. The financial
arrangement being agreed, the partner began. But many a time, such projects got
delayed, because the bumiputra partner, somehow used the proceeds for other
personal expenditures and did not pay the partner for the progressive
completion of the project. Consequently, such projects for the public stalled
for many years, when the partner stopped work because he was not being paid.
His bumiputra
partner had gone to buy a Mercedes Benz, employed a
chauffeur, rented the latest new air-conditioned office, employed the most
pretty secretary, and other office staff, and joined an exclusive private club
in the city. When a public outcry came about, and on appeal from the right political
quarters, the government had no choice but to come out with more funds to get
the project completed. There was no question of penalizing our friend, the
bumiputra contractor. This is another classic example of a developing country wasting
unnecessary financial resources for a non-economic political affirmative policy
caused by delayed development through inept management and planning experience.
The Right Connections
In the decades to follow, because of the development of a
‘skewered’ business culture, the non bumiputra business sector survival
depended not what you know but who you know, and in particular, connections to
the ruling political elites is a necessity. It harks back to the traditional
Chinese ‘guanxi’ syndrome, in effect,
but with a corrupt political overtone.
Auditor General’s
Report Scrapped
I guess no one
especially our Ministers care to read the annual Auditor-General’s Report for
the past 20 years. I suggest that the Auditor-General’s office be scrapped and
he gets a good
pension for life for doing a fantastic job for the country
but of no bloody use to the Government whose Ministers could not care two hoots
about it year in year out. Close the Department and
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save millions for the public. As for the old Anti-Corruption
Department or Agency, it never moved until orders came down from its political
masters above.
Complaint of Abuse of
Implementation of Economic Ethnic Policy Politically Incorrect
What compounded this evil of public corruption is also due
to the fact that as much of economic benefit or gain must be channeled to one
ethnic sector as a Government policy, in which no complaint or criticism can be
accepted or tolerated, which will be viewed as ‘politically incorrect’.
Hence corruption seen to be practised under such an ethnic
policy cannot be criticized openly. And what do business people do, accept to
go along with the culture, and ensure that what they are suppose to gain 100.0%
had to be shared with others, considered under privileged and not for the reason
that they had somehow contributed towards any productivity of such economic
activity. It has been seen that particularly one type of ethnic business men,
faced with such a
situation, simply increase their selling prices, to cover
such distribution of profits to others, who by virtue of their ‘privilege’
standing according to Government policy, are entitled to the ‘unearned’ income. It was basically political
blackmail of the highest economic order, subscribed and accepted by the
majority on certain conditions of time and implementation, to help raise the
economic and living status of the poorer under privileged ethnic
sector of the country. It was an ‘affirmative action’ for the apparent majority
of the citizens in our country’s case as compared to other countries where it
applies to the minority and marginalized communal sector.
Housing Development
Quota and Reserve Prices
A classic example is that of Government policy in respect of
building development, where prices of houses for sale to bumiputras have to be
cheaper by 5.0% and there must be a quota of
houses reserved for the privileged ethnic sector. What did
the business developers do? They shifted the 5.0% to the non-ethnic sector
buyer’s price. In other words the latter had to pay 5.0% more to his original
price. The developer may also have to increase the prices of the non-ethnic
sector houses to include the possible delay of disposing off
the quota houses, in the eventuality of
them not being able to sell them off.
When that happened, and the rest of the unsold quota ones are subsequently
sold, the gain will be pure additional profits. That is why Malaysian
developers grow so large and wealthy, and the politically
correct ethnic sector keeps on complaining why the non-ethnic sector is doing
so well economically. In the end the traditional way of doing business is
skewered. Those Havard Business School fellows should make a special study of
the way our country runs its business. They may end up with a Nobel Prize for
Economics in the form of a guided business model based on racially
discriminative corruptive policies worse than South Africa’s Apartheid model
and Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
Getting the Best Brains.
In the world of business management and intellectual development,
it is the principle of harnessing and capturing the best of human resources,
whether biologically innate or trained, to the production process, to obtain
the optimum output in creativity of a product or in its quantity. America is a
good example of utilizing and empowering the best brains for such creativity of
new products. Albert Einstein and his Jewish Nuclear scientists’ acceptance
into America before the Second World War, helped America to become a nuclear
power. In the modern era, Steve Job’s
smart phone invention is a classic example, apart from the historical Henry
Ford mass car production method. Steve
Jobs’s real father was a Syrian and his mother was a White American, and he was
adopted by his Caucasian parents. The American political and economic
historical development starting, with its early Pilgrim Fathers’ migration in
1620, through to the 19th and 20th Centuries migration of the economically
dispossessed and politically
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discriminated population of Europe and other countries have helped
to advance America into a world economic and military power.
Committing Economic
Hara Kiri
In this respect, no country which aspire to be a 1st world
developed nation, can afford to adopt a policy of rejecting any human being,
more so its own citizens, on racial, religious or political grounds, which can
contribute to its development. It is like cutting one’s own throat,
particularly in the current globalized world of intense economic competition.
This country has lost so many and so much of its brains to our other countries
when they migrate overseas which welcome them to help with their development.
Examples abound in Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, and the US. No country can
afford to have a singular racial policy which controls and embraces the
allocation of economic resources to one ethnic sector, when there are other
ethnic sectors with substantial minority intellectual and economic power that
can be utilized to contribute towards
the country’s overall development, if it is given
sufficient, equitable encouragement. Not to do this, is like committing
economic hara kiri.
Hijacking the Malay Agenda
Over the years after the Fourth P.M. had necessarily
introduced the many restrictive legislations, with the majority of Members of
Parliament under his control, giving their slave-like
irrational thought-less approvals, (in the opinion of
others), the country took on the perception that the Fourth P.M. had hijacked
the Malay agenda, lock, stock and barrel. No bumiputra could say anything,
because he had been taken care of with all sorts of support in employment,
scholarship, education, housing, cost of living, health, political direction
and religious guidance under the purview of the various religious departments.
He has been blessed with a policy of
being looked after from cradle to grave as perceived by the
non-bumiputra ethnic sector. The P.M. appeared to be Big Brother and Father to
the community that he had adopted.
The P.M.’s ‘1984’
Talking of ‘Big Brother’ recalls George Orwell’s satiric
novel “1984”. The Fourth P.M. with the support of his M.P.s instituted and
turned the country into a ‘Ministry of Truth’ in Orwell’s
‘Oceania’.
Restrictive legislations were approved in Parliament to put controls into the
lives of the citizens, from education to political activities, to religion.
Thought Control &
Education
In the late 1950’s and 1960’s due to the attempt by the
Malayan Communist Party and other Socialist and trade union groupings to
agitate for a leftist change in government, high school and university students
were inspired to be part of that desire for change. Student protests were part
and parcel of university student campus life. It was the ‘in thing’ to protest
anything anti-establishment in every university campus in the Western world.
When the Fourth P.M. assumed the office of P.M., he could foresee such
university students giving him trouble in opposing his own political vision for
the country and more so for his adopted ummah. For this I think he might have
followed the Greek philosopher, Aristotle (384-322 BC) who “believed that
education should be controlled by the state, and it should have as its main
objective the training of citizens.” Only
for the Fourth P.M., the training is the churning out of graduates who were
brainwashed not to think rationally for what is good for the country but for
the P.M.’s own agenda, thought control of his ‘people’.
(What ails my country,
Malaysia?)
12
University Autonomy
Our university was established, and managed under the
British university model, under the University Council, independent of
Government direct control. Academics were appointed on
global academic standards, and students were admitted on
academic merit. In that way, our University was well recognized among
Commonwealth and world academic bodies.
With the passing of the Universities & Colleges Act, while
he was the Minister of Education, under Tun Hussain Onn, Dr M Mahathir put all
the direction, control and policies of tertiary education in the hands of the
Minister of Education, an illiterate one man show instead of a body of
experienced academics sourced from all over the Commonwealth and the world. No
wonder our University standards dropped like a bomb! In addition under the Act,
all student campus activities were proscribed unless approval had been granted
by the Vice-Chancellor, now under the direction and control of the Education
Minister. Our academics were appointed on the basis of not only their academic,
but also on their ethnic qualifications. Our tertiary students in one fell
swoop had turned into school boys, and not young adults, to be trained to think
and act rationally. Here is the classic example of thought control. The
Government gives you scholarships to obtain a degree or qualification at
tertiary levels, so that you will be better employed to serve the country, not
to protest or to learn to think or express your own rational or intellectual
opinion on what the Government is doing to you and your country. Scholarships
could be withdrawn if the student were found to have breached University
student regulations. In this way, the student had no choice but to concentrate
on passing his examinations and getting his degree. He should not waste his
time using his brain to question the political and academic powers that be.
Degree Factories
Tertiary institutions became degree factories, turning out
robots. What made the development and academic progress of our universities and
colleges more difficult to compete with the
world’s best universities was the necessity of introducing
the national language and doing away at the beginning with English as the traditional
medium of instruction since the establishment of the first University of Malaya.
But the problem lay with the quality of the student intake, which by then had
their basic education in the national language and consequently when in the
university, where universal knowledge are to be found in the English language,
communication and lack of translations cause a stumbling block in accessing
knowledge in the academic world. This was
quite a setback for our students. In order to increase and
provide tertiary education to as many of his ethnic community, so as to bring
up the numbers, to level the playing field so to speak, the quota of students
for admission had to be adjusted to a higher quantum by reducing the entry
qualifications. This meant that these students would have problem making the
final grade, and also because, it was necessary to ensure that as many students
graduate, the passing marks had to be adjusted to meet the numbers.
Employment
Opportunities
Who would have thought that 40 years later, the global
competitive demand for economics and trade, coupled with the development of
Intelligent Technology products, that the English language would become the
almost sole ‘lingua franca’ of world commerce, medical and scientific research,
economic and engineering developments, and world finance. The product of our
universities in the present second decade of the 21st century has not been able
find acceptance in their qualifications by the best employers not only among
international corporations, but also among local ones. The exception is
employment from the civil service, uniformed services, and the government G.L.C.s.
Even there, the numbers are limited as to how
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Malaysia?)
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many such bodies or companies can be established with the
Government to provide more employment. The resulting scenario is racially
lopsided, with one ethnic sector seen to monopolize the Government sectors, and
the private industrial, finance and commercial sectors
reflecting the other racial sectors. No wonder that visiting
foreigners were heard to have commented that the country is perceived to be
governed by one racial group, and those that
make up the private sectors employees were mostly ‘migrants’
or ‘ in our language termed as ‘pendatangs’.
Civil Service
Autonomy
The British when they gave this country independence left us
with one of the top civil service in this part of our world. Its members were
the cream of the country’s educated professionals and intellectuals, of all
racial make-up, reflecting the model of the Chinese mandarinate. Its mandate is
to serve the nation irrespective of political leadership, whether good or bad.
Unfortunately a decade or more later, our civil service chaps were struggling
against political pressure to serve, not the nation but the ruling political
dictatorship in respect of economic inequality, religious, racial
discrimination and political repressive laws. One would recall the BBC sitcom
series called, “Yes Minister” in the 1980’s in which the number one senior
civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by the late British actor, Nigel
Hawthorn, was always saying ‘nay’, to Minister Jim Hacker’s played by Paul
Eddington, innocuous and dumb proposals for the country. Now in the second
decade of the 21st century, the poor civil service is but an appendage of the
political order, sans objectives and principles, sans independence, sans soul,
surviving for the monthly salary and the final pension. A great loss for the
nation.
Opportunities for
Retiring Secretary-Generals to Act as Consultants/Directors to Top Private
Corporations
It would appear that post retirement employment
opportunities abound for those retiring Secretary-Generals of Government
Departments, who had been working or co-operating with the relevant private sector
corporations. Cultivating the ruling politicians or ministers while in the
service of the Government will earn these Secretary-Generals a spot in the
various Government Local Corporations, unless the private sector corporations
made a better offer. This situation
poses a moral question, in which for such a situation to
arise, there must be some ‘co-operation’ given to the private sector corporation
when the Secretary-General had the power to oblige a favour, with the
understanding that there will be a position in the Board of Directors when he
retires from the Civil service. Perhaps Parliament should pass an Act that such
high government civil servants cannot accept such positions offered by the
private sector corporations. Instead they will be given special pensions for a
limited period, to ensure that they will not be given such ‘favours’ by the
private business corporate sector. What he knows of Government knowledge,
experience and intelligence should still be considered as ‘government secrets’.
But what is more important is to take away the opportunity for corruption.
Decline of Morality
In the last forty years of the country’s history under the
present government management, there has been physical material development
reflecting first world infrastructure accompanied by industrialization and
developed economy, but our country remains in a cocoon of third world
mentality. In the race to achieve, 2020 Vision, corruption has taken hold of
the very soul of its citizens. In the old days, ‘face’ was the guiding principle,
that you do not indulge or do anything that will bring disgrace to your family,
by insulting another person, or being seen to be weak in your character,
susceptible to corruption, emotionally and easily affected by racial or
religious
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Malaysia?)
14
provocation. Regretfully, this has been brought about by a
radical policy of race and political dominance culminating in a comprehensive
culture, which is impervious to any criticism, religious or otherwise. It
appears to have no effect or even sustain the moral fibre of our people. It is
not just material or financial aspects, but also the loss of sexual control and
restraints. Apparently religious edicts could not prevent incestuous relations.
Dog in the Manger
Attitude.
As a result of the mono culture created, based on the idea
of the special privileges reserved for one sector of the country being
concretized, if not in stone, as claimed, but in perpetuity if possible,
non-bumiputras came to experience when communicating with those in government
and statutory bodies an arrogant attitude which implies that they are second
class citizens, who
can be ignored and could wait, after coffee break for any
attention. The fact that most of the government and semi-government public
counters are being manned by bumiputras, gave the
impression that the country is only populated by one ethnic
community, and that others are foreigners, paying for their community services.
This could not engender national unity for the country. The perception is a
deliberate policy of dividing the country’s multicultural communities.
This is completely anti-patriotic for any nation, a
deliberate division of the people. Historians blame the British for its
colonial divide and rule policy. It is the same under the present political
regime.
Whither Malaysia?
We all seem to know the reasons why our country has been in
such a mess. The silent majority of citizens are still waiting for our
political leaders to be strong enough to move mountains and get our country out
of the morass of corruption, religious and political persecution, economic
inequality, racial discrimination, and all the discriminative acts against
civil rights. Do we expect a Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to arise?
